NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks fell Thursday as bearish comments by Wall Street analysts, coupled with lingering nervousness about higher interest rates, fueled a selloff in the final hour of trading, ending a comeback in the battered technology sector.
Nearly every equity group rolled back, dragging all major stock indexes lower. That spoiled an early rally among technology leaders on volume that analysts said was encouraging.
"This just shows that this is a market clearly on the defensive," said Scott Bleier, chief investment strategist at Prime Charter Ltd. "The path of least resistance is to the downside."
The Dow Jones industrial average slid 211.43 points, or 2.01 percent, to 10,323.92 to reverse Wednesday's 113-point gain. It was the lowest close for the Dow since April 14.
J.P. Morgan and Microsoft led the blue-chip gauge lower. The New York Stock Exchange set trading curbs when the Dow first dropped 200 points.
Measures of the broader market also erased early gains. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 17.53 points, or 1.25 percent, to 1,381.52.
Traders said the market simply lost momentum by late afternoon and fell victim to profit-taking as traders closed positions ahead of the long U.S. Memorial Day holiday weekend.
"We ran out of steam early in the day, as we started to exhaust the supply of buy orders that had started on Thursday afternoon," said Michael Palazzi, managing director of over-the-counter stock trading at CIBC World Markets in New York.
Bearish comments by Wall Street analysts on Goldman Sachs and Microsoft also hurt those heavyweights, pressuring their entire sectors. Goldman (GS) dropped 6-7/8 at 73-1/8 while Microsoft (MSFT) ended down 4-1/16 at 61-1/2.
The Commerce Department reported that preliminary first-quarter gross domestic product rose 5.4 percent while economists had expected the figure to be revised down to a 5.2 percent rise.
Bond prices soared as cash came out of stocks. The 10-year U.S. Treasury note gained 20/32, pushing the yield down to 6.38 percent from Wednesday's close of 6.47 percent. The 30-year bond strengthened 1-5/32, with the yield down to 6.11 percent from Wednesday's 6.2 percent.
